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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985598">Trying</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Underground/pseuds/Living_Underground'>Living_Underground</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And Mulder thinks its impossible, And then William happened, F/M, Mulder doesn't, Post-Episode: s09e19-20 The Truth, Scully believes, Scully thinks they can conceive again, Scully wants a baby, The Unremarkable House (X-Files), and for years Chris Carter insisted she was infertile, and her ova were removed, and so, and then she had cancer, angsty, because, because William happened, because she was abducted, ish, it should be, realistically, she's infertile, which, you know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:56:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985598</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Underground/pseuds/Living_Underground</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t until he caught her in the bathroom at four in the morning, door shut, thermometer in mouth, scribbling on a notepad in shorthand, that he figured out what was going on.</p>
<p>A post-The Truth discussion about fertility and miracles. It's barely a discussion, actually.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Trying</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This has been sat on my hard drive for ages and every time I open it up I change, like, two words, and then close it again. So now I am getting rid of it so I stop tinkering. </p>
<p>It never was good and it never will be, so don't expect much.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was about six months into her residency that he noticed, though didn’t pay much mind to it. The apparent cycle of her libido. He reckoned he could probably tell the date by how often they had sex on a weekly basis if he needed to. He rationalised this realisation by saying it was probably just because she had settled into a routine with home and work and was letting her body, for the first time in a year, find its own natural rhythm. It had been a while since he had been with anyone else in a long-term relationship, and he couldn’t quite remember if that was how it worked. But it put his mind at ease, so he went with it.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until he caught her in the bathroom at four in the morning, door shut, thermometer in mouth, scribbling on a notepad in shorthand, that he figured out what was going on.</p>
<p>Well, he figured it out about three minutes <em>after</em> he caught her in the bathroom.</p>
<p>He recognised the shorthand, the position she was sat in; everything was so familiar, though he couldn’t place it. He was sure he had seen her like this though.</p>
<p>His mind had first gone to cancer. She was sick again. ‘Scully?’ voice weak as his knees, terrified his world was about to come crashing down around him, as he stared at her, fear plastered across his face, while she sat perched on the edge of the bathtub, a look of being caught red-handed flitting across eyes that wouldn’t meet his.</p>
<p>And then it hit him. He knew where he remembered the notebook and the thermometer from. ‘Scully, what are you doing?’ His voice was harsher this time. The initial thought being that she hadn’t told him. That she had been <em>using</em> him. That they hadn’t discussed it, what she was trying to attempt.</p>
<p>But then he realised she had been trying. <em>Trying</em> so hard for the impossible, all on her own. No help from hormones, no help from doctors. Without his support. Without telling him. And the tremor of her lips and the shake of her hand as she removed the thermometer melted him, relaying the fear she felt, for she knew what he would say. She knew he would tell her it was impossible and he knew she had not told him for that specific reason. ‘Scully, what are you doing?’ The repeated question was softer this time, a mournful whisper. He knows. He just wants to hear it.</p>
<p>‘I just…’</p>
<p>She looks so small all of a sudden. So much smaller than he has ever seen her (had she lost weight without him noticing?) So fragile. Like the slightest breeze would break her in half.</p>
<p>‘Scully, you’re…you don’t…you can’t…’ he didn’t know how to say it, how to bring up the obvious without breaking her heart. How to remind her that she had no ova left. That whilst her body still rotated through a cycle of hormones each month, it was perfunctory. She couldn’t conceive. It wasn’t possible.</p>
<p>She looked down then, at her hands folded on her lap, prim and proper and so closed off. ‘We managed it once,’ barely more than a breath. It was unspoken rule number one: no talking about William. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but the silence kept them from admitting how much it hurt. How much seeing little toddlers in the grocery store killed her, and how much finding an advert online for father and son matching t-shirts left him sobbing silently in his office. It kept them from acknowledging the guilt they each felt, the blame they placed on themselves – their job was to save people but they couldn’t keep their own son safe, he should have been a father but instead he had been off hiding like a coward.</p>
<p>As if the shards of glass slicing into his heart couldn’t get worse. The hopefulness that glimmered under the surface, that he could see welling in her eyes as she reached up to finger her cross.</p>
<p>A sigh, broken-hearted and heavy, ‘Scully…’ He moved then, one small step over the threshold of the bathroom, a giant leap as he bundled her into his arms. ‘Scully, William was a miracle. We don’t… we don’t know how he came to be. But I don’t think it’s a miracle that will repeat itself.’</p>
<p>She tilted her face up from where it was tucked under his chin, a hurt look on her face. ‘You can’t know that. We can at least try. You’ve just got to believe, Mulder.’</p>
<p>If not talking about William was an unhealthy coping mechanism, this was possibly fatal. He could see it killing her already, and dragging him down in the process. But there was a pain in her eyes that he just wanted to soothe, and so he sighed and nodded, bundled her in his arms and took her to bed.</p>
<p>Tomorrow. They would talk about it tomorrow.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You cannot tell me that Dana Katherine Scully, the woman who lost two of her children, who was told time and time again that she was infertile and tried for AT LEAST a year (because we all know the IVF arc was longer than we were shown) to conceive, only to end up conceiving naturally (because she wouldn't have been as shocked about her pregnancy if it was the IVF that had been successful, and I have just kind of assumed that when it didn't take in the flashbacks in Per Manum that was their last attempt, though I can't actually remember if that is canon because I do not watch seasons 8 and 9 on a regular basis), would not analyse her basal temperature fluctuations and track her ovulation and create schedules and try everything possible short of actually going to a fertility specialist in an attempt to conceive again. </p>
<p>And I really doubt she would tell Mulder because these two emotional dysfunctional babies can't talk to one another (or to anybody else, I mean, come on) about anything.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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